


Pride

by TheFairysPath (friendlyneighborhoodfairy)



Series: The Path I Took (WWTDP 2018) [22]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Adoption, Alternative Families, Asexual Relationship, F/F, F/M, Family, Grandchildren, M/M, Miscarriage, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 19:56:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16394102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlyneighborhoodfairy/pseuds/TheFairysPath
Summary: Gray, Natsu, and Erza have something more than friendship between them, but it's not a romantic relationship either.(Fic #1 forWhen We Take Different Pathssexuality week.)





	Pride

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt = pride + alternative family styles (asexual polyamory). Grayzatsu-ish? Alternate canon universe.

Erza, Natsu, and Gray were always together. Sure, they fought a lot, but it was the kind of fighting you did with those you loved, not those you hated. The bickering, annoyed, I-have-to-put-up-with-you-so-damn-well-compromise-with-me-here kind.

To be fair, they spent more time  _not_  arguing than arguing. That was something.

None of them ever slept alone at home. Which, since there were three of them, usually meant a threesome dog pile at someone's house. They slept better that way.

Erza eventually got too many warnings for sneaking the boys into her room and left Fairy Hills to move in with Natsu. Gray stubbornly held onto his own place, saying he needed space, and the other two humored him. Gray did the most internalizing of the three of them, and that often meant he was the most quiet. Erza had learned, thanks to the other two's constant questions, to talk her feelings out, and Natsu had always been one to punch his feelings out. They were working on getting Gray to be healthier.

When Lucy joined their team, she put up with them with rolled eyes and teasing jokes, but soon she was used to it, the way Erza would come to her house and pile into her bed if the boys were off on a mission, the way Natsu came and ate all her food if he was feeling lonely, because he just couldn't stand to be anywhere by himself. The way you just could not get Gray on his own without Natsu, Erza, or both with him.

Erza and Lucy dated for a while. Lucy handled the fact that Erza was still specially close with the other two; that was, by now, just part of Erza. Everyone accepted that about the three of them. Those three were family. They were a unit.

As years went by, that fact pervaded everything.

Natsu went missing, and Gray and Erza went into a frenzy tracking him down.

Gray struggled off and on with depression, and the other two were always there when he needed grounding. He'd finally been persuaded to move in with them, and there he actually flourished, unable now to pull into his darkness alone and let his mind torture him without anyone knowing.

Erza decided she wanted to try to have a child, and the other two were there with her when she dealt with the sickness; that first time when there was blood and tears and "the donor's sperm weren't viable, but we'll be more careful next time;" and then next time turned into a third time, and the years were passing faster now, and by the fourth try, there weren't as many tears: the three of them holding each other and eating comfort foods and walking through the sorrow of what could have been and was simply not meant to be.

It took some years before a tentative Natsu admitted he wanted a kid. He didn't know if he knew how to be a parent—Igneel had been amazing, but he'd also disappeared early on, and Natsu was scared, had always been. But he was considering adopting because scary as it was, he wanted to have kids. At least one.

Gray smiled and said he agreed and liked that plan. They both looked at Erza, who gave Natsu a soft look and said she wanted that for him. She said he'd be great as a father. She told him she was proud of him, and Natsu cried and laughed and said how much he loved them.

Natsu and Gray were the adoptive parents in the paperwork, but there was never any question that they would all raise this child.

They were a unit. They did these things together. It was more than friendship: it was a relationship without the romance, the committed love of those who choose to be together.

Aki grew up surrounded by love and rambunctious energy and three loving parents who modeled daily the disagreements that arose when people who loved each other were honest, and the way people who were honest found ways through those disagreements because they loved each other.

She was normal and boisterous and innocently good. She was well-loved.

She grew up well.

The house of her growing up always had three loving people whom she could return to—at a moment's notice, the three of them so excited to see her, Erza asking her a thousand questions and Natsu declaring all the new scents on her and Gray making her favorite food and giving her a quiet hug. It was perfect and it was home.

When she dated, she always brought her partners over to meet the parents who had made her who she was. It was a way of self-revelation and also a test, making sure it was okay, making sure the person didn't make it weird that she had three parents and none of them were her blood.

"Why is that weird?" she would ask. "Some people have two parents. Some people have one. Some people grow up with aunts and uncles everywhere and have oodles of parental figures."

She met a girl—a girl who loved Aki's family; who had long, deep conversations with Gray, and loved cuddling up and learning new skills from Erza, and was always ready to throw down with Natsu, who was ecstatic to have another ice mage in the family.

Aki and the girl Fuyu had a child, and this child had five grandparents.

"You're all my favorites!" their grandchild told the threesome one day, at the age of four.

"You're my absolute favorite," Erza said, sweeping the child up into her arms. Cheeks pink and smile wide, she looked right carrying a child. Whole.

"Aki, you've been demoted," Gray teased, kissing his daughter's head. "I guess this makes you second-favorite."

"Admit it: I'm third-favorite. You all adore Fuyu."

On the sofa, Fuyu blushed with pleasure.

"I adore everyone!" Natsu declared from the kitchen. "I have enough love to go around. Unlike this limited icicle over here."

"Hey," Gray laughed.

"Fire burns hot, but it's also the ficklest," Erza said as a small hand dragged her over to the bookcase of picture books.

"Zing!" Natsu grinned. "Good one."

"Are you ever going to stop teasing each other?" Aki asked in exasperation.

"What would be the fun in that?" Gray asked. He smiled at the two people he'd loved for most of his life. "It's the people who know you best who can make you laugh at yourself the most honestly."

"That," Fuyu spoke up, "is very wise."

"It deserves a cookie," Natsu agreed, appearing with a hot tray in his bare hand.

"Is this going to burn my fingers?" Gray asked suspiciously.

"I let it sit for a few minutes. Promise."

"I probably don't have feeling in my fingertips at this point anyway," Gray shrugged, and grabbed a cookie.

Aki grabbed two before her child exploded into their midst and assaulted Natsu's legs asking to have one.

"Everyone gets cookies," he said. "We're all wise."

"Speak for yourself," Erza said. "I'm still wondering how I got myself saddled with you two."

This got Natsu laughing so hard he had to put the tray down. (He did not try to stop the small hand that snuck three cookies from it. At sixty, he still had plenty enough energy to handle a hyper child.)

Gray pulled Erza into a hug and she kissed his cheek.

"We're the best family," Aki sighed. "I'm so thankful life happened this way."

"Me too," Erza said. "Me too."

**Author's Note:**

> It wasn't until after I finished that I realized I didn't use the prompt word directly in here at all. :p I meant this to be a fic showing how they're all proud of the family they've developed together, and Aki in particular is proud of the parents she as. ^_^


End file.
